In which a veteran of cultural studies seminars in the 1990s moves into academic administration and finds himself a married suburban father of two. Foucault, plus lawn care.

Title

The Girl is Published!

By

I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled meditations on higher education, but today calls for some unfiltered parental cheerleading.

The Girl is 13, and in the 8th grade. At the behest of the advisor to the Publishing Club (!) at her school, she wrote an entry for the New York Times’ “Best Books of 2017” feature. Her post, as it appears there:

I’ve read a variety of books throughout 2017, but “Carry On” by Rainbow Rowell stands out not only as my favorite from this year, but of all time. The book is everything I want to be as a person; clever, funny, sweet, and interesting. The characters worm their way into your heart and soul, and yet manage to be believable. Each one flips a character stereotype on its head in a beautiful way. The “chosen one” of the story is horrible at magic, the “evil British vampire guy” is sweet and in love, the “smart female best friend” actually has flaws (wow!) and the “beautiful girlfriend of the main character” is, in my opinion, vile. Despite my opinion, she is extremely realistic.

Reading it in one seven and a half hour sitting during the summer was not my best decision. If I had known that it was a work of pure genius, I would have savored the book, tasted it like a five course meal, and finished it with a content sigh. Instead, I stayed up until 1:26 am and wasn’t able to think about the book without internally shrieking for another week, but there are worse things, I suppose. There are worse things than falling in love with a book.

Looking into 2018, I’m looking forward to reading any new book by Rainbow Rowell, having read all of her past ones and loving each one of them. And while a part of my heart will forever remain tucked into the off-white pages of “Carry On,” I will keep my soul open, ready and waiting for a different book to sweep me off into a newer, brighter world.

I’ll admit parental bias, but I’m insanely proud of her. She’s a voracious reader -- I’ve written before of our trip to Comic Con to see Rainbow Rowell speak -- and even at thirteen, you can see a writerly voice starting to emerge. It sounds like her. “Clever, funny, sweet, and interesting.” Yup.

“There are worse things than falling in love with a book.” Yes, there are. Yay, TG!!!!!